Valentino Blewett registers best Canadian performance in iQFoil at French Olympic Week

Valentino Blewett registers best Canadian performance in iQFoil at French Olympic Week © Sailing Energy / French Olympic Week Hyères - TPM

Valentino Blewett from Whistler, B.C., registered the best Canadian performance with a 17th-place finish in Men's iQFoil at the second Sailing Grand Slam regatta of the season, the 2026 edition of French Olympic Week, held this week in Hyères, France.

The 17-year-old sailor was taking part in only the second Sailing Grand Slam regatta of his career. A few weeks ago at the first Sailing Grand Slam event of the season, the Princess Sofia Trophy regatta, he took the 62nd position.

Through the first seven races of the Preliminary Series in which he took part at French Olympic Week, he finished three times in the top 10, allowing him to qualify for the Gold Fleet in the Elimination Series and to have a chance to be on the podium. Unfortunately, only the top 10 from that phase of racing qualified for the Final Series.

"I'm very happy with my performance during this regatta. It was a great experience to compete with such high-level athletes in the senior fleet," said Blewett, who started sailing in the Optimist class at age seven and was introduced to iQFoil only four years ago.

Paris 2024 Olympic Games Gold medalist Grae Morris from Australia took the gold medal, followed by Federico Alan Pilloni from Italy and Kun Bi from China. The bronze medalist from the 2025 World Championship, Nicolo Renna from Italy, took the 4th position, while the silver medal winner at this event in 2025, Tom Arnoux from France, finished 7th overall. A total of 67 sailors took part in the men's iQFoil event.

James Juhasz also in the Gold Fleet

In ILCA 7, James Juhasz from Oakville, ON, also qualified for the Gold Fleet following the Preliminary Series, and recorded the best Canadian performance in that class with a 37th-place finish.

He took the 44th position a few weeks ago at the Princess Sofia Trophy regatta, in addition to coming in 37th at the 2025 Men's ILCA 7 World Championship.

"I'm very happy with how I finished off the regatta," said James Juhasz. "Three strong results in Gold Fleet are good to carry some confidence forward into the World Championship later this summer. There are still a lot of 'what ifs' and I wish I had made a few less mistakes, but I'm very happy with the progress I've shown in a range of conditions and I have definitely made big improvements in the light and medium winds."

The 49erFX Canadian Team of Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance, which won gold at the 2026 Princess Sofia Trophy regatta, as well as the 49er team of Thomas and William Staples did not take part in French Olympic Week as they are currently training for the 2026 49er and 49erFX World Championships to be held May 12-17 in Quiberon, France.

Over 600 sailors were in action at the French Olympic Week event, including 66% of the medalists from last year's various World Championships and 43% of the medalists from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in the 10 Olympic classes that were scheduled.

The next three regattas that will be part of this year's Grand Slam Series are Dutch Water Week (May 30-June 7), Kiel Week (June 20-28) as well as the Long Beach and San Pedro Olympic Classes Regatta (OCR) (July 13-August 8).

Canadian results at the 2026 French Olympic Week event

Men's iQFoil

17. Valentino Blewett (Whistler, B.C.)

ILCA 7

37. James Juhasz (Oakville, ON)
92. Ryan Anderson (Halifax, N.S.)

ILCA 6

50. Clara Gravely (Toronto, ON)
83. Annie Balasubramanian (Toronto, ON)

Nacra 17

25. Galen Richardson (Toronto, ON) & Madeline Gillis (Halifax, N.S.)
30. Caspar Lenz Anderson (Calgary, AB) & Grace Poole (Victoria, B.C.)